David Dun - The Black Silent

Sam could hear the screaming even underwater.

When Sam let go, the man was much more interested in swimming in the other direction.

Sam moved toward Sarah.

Even in pain Sarah could swim a little and remained at the surface, floundering next to him.

Then she disappeared. He felt around and found her. He pulled her up, weary, wondering if he could make it.

"I'm trying. I hurt, so tired," Sarah whispered.

"Lie on your back," he said, and she did. "Don't struggle, it makes you colder." Sam knew that struggle circulated the blood and the body acted as a radiator, hence movement equaled lower core temperatures in the body. Her body went limp in the water. "Put your hands on my shoulders." She did that. Instinctively she put her legs to either side of his torso and he began doing the breaststroke, using his healthiest limbs to propel them through the water toward the plane, which had drifted away. As he moved, he could tell Sarah was drifting off; he wasn't sure he could keep her at the surface and breathing.

He heard the amphibian's engine try to start. Haley tried it again and again, but it didn't catch.

"Haley," he called out.

"Yeah," she shouted from a distance.

"Come here, fast."

She kicked the starter twice more before the engine caught. Then she was near them in seconds.

To locate Sam and Sarah she had flicked on the landing light, illuminating a swath at least one hundred yards or more in length. She could see the three men, two appeared headed for a point to her right and the third headed directly at the plane. Sam and Sarah were close by, swimming toward her, Sarah on her back pushed by Sam on his belly. She killed the lights and gunned the throttle, then came up beside them.

Now she flicked on the cockpit lights, giving the area around the hull a soft glow, allowing her to see.

Sarah was floundering and nearly incoherent. Putting a ladder over the side, Haley climbed down and tried to help Sarah up. Sarah was going into shock, from hypothermia probably, and Haley couldn't lift her the couple of feet up and in the plane.

Suddenly it occurred to her that Sam had disappeared.

She had been so intent on Sarah that she didn't see one of the men right near the ladder.

He had a gun pointed at her gut.

"Drop her and help me," the man said.

Sam was ten feet away and swimming toward the man from behind.

"I said let her go."

"I can't, she'll die," Haley said. "And if you kill me, I can't help you, anyway."

The man's gun hand was shaking. His lips were blue. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The safety. As if telegraphing the thought, the man glanced at the gun. Then the gun boomed. Missed.

Sam grabbed the gun and swung it down.

They began to struggle.

"Paddle, Haley."

She knew he was afraid of this man getting to the plane. Desperate, she pulled Sarah up on the edge of the plane, draping her body and putting her hands on the seat where Sarah could grip. Grabbing a paddle, Haley pulled on each stroke trying to move the plane away. She hoped the plane was moving fast enough. Haley could hardly think with Sarah's terrible groaning in her ear and Sarah about to fall back in.

Sam and the man had disappeared. Pain squeezed Haley's heart as she imagined that Sam might die.

"Hold on, Sarah," she said through gritted teeth.

She heard screaming from the man fighting with Sam.

"Let go, let go," the man yelled; then he went under again. Sam was still nowhere to be seen. They both surfaced. "Oh God, my fingers," the man shrieked.

Sam hit him in the jaw and he disappeared. Then Sam was pulling something, no doubt the man.

Haley stopped paddling and turned around, keeping a strong hand on Sarah's arm. "Let him sink."

"Maybe in a minute," Sam said. "Right now I'm busy trying to save him."

In one of the strangest moments of her life, Haley smiled at Sam's joke.

He drew the guy to the side of the boat. Sarah was still groaning, but more quietly now.

For a moment Sam let go of the man and helped shove Sarah in the plane. Quickly he grabbed his assailant, who was starting to sink.

Sam wedged the unconscious man's head and shoulder through the ladder rungs until he could climb up and into the plane. Then he took the plane's dock line, wrapped it under the man's arms, crawled out on the wing, and tied the man under the wing to a tie-down eye.

Haley was exasperated that they were saving this killer, while Sarah was suffering and hypothermia was menacing the three of them. Then she felt ashamed and knew Sam was right. They were not like Frick and never would be.

Sam was shaking badly. His stamina had left him.

Sarah curled in a ball from the sting of the salt and shivered from the cold. She could not endure much more.

Haley revved the plane's engine. Still a little gas left, she guessed.

Frick pulled up to the Harlasens' and found a man named "Philly" Duggan in the front yard. The first name was a handle reflecting his choice of baseball teams.

"What's going on?"

"Residents are in the house, except for two of their boys. We have the boys cuffed in a car."

"Where's Sarah James?" Frick asked.

"Out on the water. All hell broke loose out there. I've heard shots and screams, but I can't see a thing. We made the Harlasen lady talk when we threatened a kid. They had Sarah James hid pretty good. Chase and Haley Walther went off in a car, then the Lake airplane. Rafe's team jumped in one of the family boats and went out, figuring the plane would land. I guess they came back for the James woman. Besides, the plane is full of holes, so they ain't goin' far. We know that."

"You're holding two kids hostage?" Frick knew he shouldn't have been surprised. "You threatened them in front of their mother?"

The man nodded.

"Why didn't you call me or Khan?"

"We did, but you didn't answer," Philly said. "And it all happened so fast, I mean we heard the plane. It was seconds."

Frick was shocked but displayed utter calm, as was his habit before killing. There would be no means of explaining this on Monday morning unless he created one. There was still the slim possibility that he would be around giving explanations.

"I heard a lot of shooting and hollering out there on the water," the guy said, hoping for redemption. "Rafe's got 'em. I'm sure of it."

"All right," Frick said. "You take this gun and come with me. You shoot this family.

We'll say Chase did it."

"Hey. Wait a minute. I've killed people, you know. But not kids. Not a family."

"Fine." Frick shot Duggan between the eyes before the man could think to protest.

Strangely, he didn't drop immediately. It was as if he were staring out from either side of the bullet hole before realizing that he couldn't stand.

Frick walked toward the house, knowing that he had no choice but to kill them all and blame Sam.

Sarah, barely conscious, clearly suffered hypothermia. Sam dug a coat out of the amphib's storage compartment and covered her.

"Now what?" Haley asked.

"Those men are poor swimmers, but they'll probably make those rock walls and crawl out," Sam said.

"I'm not worried about them," Haley said. "I'm worried about the Harlasens. More'll be coming. You know it."

"Take us to that big yacht. Just taxi us there, on the water. I'll go back to the Harlasens, once we get Sarah taken care of."

Halfway to the yacht, Sam signaled Haley to approach the shore. In a couple minutes they had motored to a sloping rock face on the westerly point and then paddled the plane in until they bumped rocks, which were like granite shark's teeth in the thigh-deep water.

Sam pulled the unconscious gunman onto the rocks and left him. He had a police radio, and they left it on; the GPS in the radio would send a location signal to the dispatcher and a deputy would eventually show up to save him.